The Afghan Surge Was A Dismal Failure And These NATO Charts Prove It

Lt. Col. Daniel Davis, the Army whistleblower who detailed how big of a mess the Afghan war is and how U.S. military leaders are lying about it, explained how the Afghan surge from late 2010 to last week was "flawed before one boot hit Afghan dirt" because the success of the 2007 Iraq surge was luck.

The Afghan surge was based on false premises—namely that the Iraq surge was a unqualified success—and its U.S. troops on the ground who paid for that mistake with their lives, limbs and mental health.

The strategy of the Afghan surge was to CLEAR out the Taliban, HOLD all ground seized, BUILD infrastructure and governance, and TRANSFER control to Afghan forces while "winning the hearts and minds" of the Afghan population.

The failure of the counter-insurgency is clear when one compares "Enemy-Initiated Attacks" and "Executed IED Attacks" from the beginning of the surge in mid-2009 to the drawdown in mid-2012.

As Lt. Col. Davis noted, U.S. casualties increased with each successive increase of troops since violence began to rise in 2005—reaching a peak in the middle of the surge (October 2011)—and only began to drop once 10,000 troops were withdrawn by the end of December 2011.